I dag går andra utgåvan av Draw Muhammad Day av stapeln. Förra året sammanställde jag en egen publicering av Muhammed-teckningar, men har i år inte haft tid att engagera mig i frågan.
I stället flyttar jag fokus till The Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta.
When people hear about Everybody Draw Muhammad Day, they want to know: Why do it? Why be jerks about it? Why are you all intolerant of Islam? Why be dicks when you can be friendly?
And my response really hasn’t changed from last year.
We do it because we have a right to free speech, and there are people out there who want to make sure a drawing of Muhammad never sees the light of day.
We do because religious figures don’t automatically deserve special respect and they’re not immune from criticism. Too often, we treat religion and religious beliefs with baby gloves. Drawing Muhammad is one way to show — non-violently — that Islam ought to be susceptible to criticism just like every other belief system.
We do it because people have been threatened and killed by Muslim radicals for their depictions of Muhammad and criticism of Islam — by drawing Muhammad ourselves, we stand in solidarity with them.
We do it because Muhammad was drawn for centuries before it somehow became “offensive” to some. There was nothing wrong with it then and there’s nothing wrong with it now.
We do it because people are now getting censored — sometimes ridiculously so — out of fear of what the extremists will do. The radicals should not have this kind of control over the right to express ourselves freely.
Bland mina favoritteckningar i år hittar du nedanstående, alla hämtade från Hemant Mehtas sammanställning.
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